Bittersweet Tears
by Karigan Rohanna
Summary: Tears are a bitter solace when saying good-bye to those you love. Part one of Fic Circlet "Ties That Bind"


Bittersweet Tears   
Author: Karigan Rohanna (ladyofgondor@diaryland.com)   
Feedback: Desired greatly.   
Written: July 2nd, 2003   
Summary: Tears are a bitter solace when saying good-bye to those you love.   
Warnings: General audience, angst.   
A/N: Part One of the Fic Circlet "Ties that Bind". Read also "A Different Kind of Dream" and "The Circle is Breaking". For Saramir, thanks to her Faramir muse, whom I did borrow. 

Bitter were our tears, as sweet as the memory of the words my brother spoke upon our last parting. As all things of its nature, it was a wound that never healed quite properly, an injury that would ache when all other things ached, but a thing tended, so that it never _would_ heal.   
I did not want to forget the last time I saw my brother.   
I rode with him out of the city. As was our custom, since we had both been boys, and I still very young, I wished to see him off well. Even then I had feared to let go of my protector, for fear he would not come back, as my mother had not come back from her illness.   
We road a ways in silence. It was hard to think of things to say. I should have been going, not he. It was I who first had seen the dream, I who had plagued him about it until he brought it up to Father, saying it had been his dream-- perhaps it had been, but I never could assure myself that he simply did not say it was his for Father to take notice.   
Off chasing a dream. It was the kind of thing I was supposed to do-- not he. He was the son Father loved-- he was the hero of our people, our Captain-General, the Defender of the White Tower. I was only Faramir, the poet, the thinker, the quiet one. I was the one who dreamed. I was the one who should have gone.   
I have always hated good-byes. They are never what they should be. After a person is gone, you think of all manner of things you want to tell them, but when you see them again, you have forgotten almost, if not all of it. And when your big brother is about to go off chasing down elves in a place that may not even exist, through a land very few people travel through, over a dream that may or may not be true, you do not necessarily know that he will be coming back for you to say _any_ of the things you think of. There are so many things you want to say, but when it comes right down to it, the words simply don't come.   
So we rode in silence and let the early morning mist part as we ventured alone down the road that would take him first to Edoras, then to the wild. If he was lucky, he would reach Imladris, and after finding the answer to the Riddle, come home. I knew I could not fathom all the dangers he would face, but the ones I could indeed fathom were so many and so mighty that I feared never to see him again at all. The weight of his death away from home, even while he was still with me, alive and well, was something I felt and feared. I could very well be sending him to his doom. What did that make me?   
We had ridden no more than a mile before Boromir pulled his horse to a stand-still. I reined in my mare and looked into his face, trying to memorize what he looked like before he told me he had to go the rest of the way alone. He looked back at me, and was very quiet, and very sober, as if trying to think.   
"I want you to know, brother," He said, very slowly, very thoughtfully, as was his nature when he was trying to say something emotional, "that just because I am leaving the City does not mean I am leaving you." I waited for him to continue as he bit his lip, trying to think of the words to express what was going on in his head and heart. "I am not abandoning you defenseless, and I swear to you I will not be long before returning." He paused once more. "And I will not return without the answer you so desire."   
I smiled, trying to put on a brave face, knowing he was trying to say he still loved me even though we would be parted, trying to encourage me not to be afraid. "I know you'd never leave me." I told him. "I know you think you should be the one to go on this... quest..." I did not plead with him to let me go in his stead. I did not plead with him to please, please let me go, and take the huge weight off my chest at the thought of leaving our city without him on my account. "I don't know what I'd do without you looking out for me."   
I saw a flash of guilt on his features then, and had to fight to repress the swell of sudden guilt of my own for making him feel bad about leaving. "You'll do fine on your own." He told me reassuringly. "You always had it in you to make it on your own. You just have to work towards it." I tried to believe him, but deep down inside, a spiteful voice said I could not do anything without Boromir protecting me from Denethor's wrath. I shoved it into silence. "I know I leave you in the best hands that could have you-- your own."   
He believed in me. It wasn't just talk-- I could see it in his eyes. He honestly believed in me. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. I tried to think of something to say. "You... you'll stay safe, won't you? Not take foolish risks and..."   
Boromir smiled at me. "I'll come back, don't worry, little brother." He leaned over and ruffled my hair with his heavily gloved hand, as he had used to do when we were children and the act had irritated me. "I'll come back, just you wait. And you'll tell me about all the adventures you had in the City, and it will be like when we were children again."   
Boromir clasped my hand, and held it tightly, and for a long moment, I thought we might part without tears. But it was he whose eyes glimmered with unshed tears as he squeezed my hand. "I shall miss you, little brother." He said quietly. "I know you pray... will you pray for me as well when you lift up your requests?"   
I did not tell him I had been praying for him a long while, I just squeezed his hand back. "Of course." To repeat the stay safe admonition would have been not only silly, but utterly pointless. I tried to think of something else to say. I felt tears rising within me, a response to those which glimmered in his own eyes. "I will miss you too." I said, very quietly.   
Boromir released my hand and turned his attention back to his mount. He nudged it quickly into a walk, and I knew he was hoping I would not have to see his tears fall. "Watch for me!" He called back, not turning. "Watch for me, for surely I shall return!"   
But I knew in my heart he would never ride this road again, not up to the city. I had not told him that dream-- the one in which I saw the cloven horn of Vorondil, and knew he was to die away from home. I let myself cry as he became smaller and more obscured until the mist swallowed him whole, so that I could only hear the empty ringing of his horse's hooves on the pavement.   
My tears tasted bitter and warm, but not half so bitter as the pain inside, and not even hot tears could fill the cold empty place in my stomach as my brother disappeared out of sight and sound.   
When he was gone, I knew I would never be whole again. 


End file.
